<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Working the Case by WhumpTown</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29210076">Working the Case</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhumpTown/pseuds/WhumpTown'>WhumpTown</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Criminal Minds (US TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Aaron Hotchner Whump, Angst, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Hurt, Hurt Aaron Hotchner, Hurt No Comfort, Sad, This Is Not Going To Go The Way You Think, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, Whatever you think is going to happen, and then you might be right, that's not what's about to happen, unless you think I'm going to kill everyone</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 06:09:13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,316</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29210076</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhumpTown/pseuds/WhumpTown</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>
    <b>“After I finish you, I’m gonna find that little bastard son of yours and I’m going to show him both of his dead parents, and I’m gonna tell him that it was all your fault”</b>
  </i>
</p><p>Foyet makes good on a promise</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aaron Hotchner &amp; Derek Morgan, Aaron Hotchner &amp; Haley Hotchner, Aaron Hotchner &amp; Jack Hotchner</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>25</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Working the Case</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I do feel bad about this but like... not too bad</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Though Jack Hotchner remains too young to cognitively hold on to concrete memories of his parents, there is still the foundation of trust that he holds for them. He will never remember the countless baths that his mother gave him. The way she always held her hand against his hairline to keep the suds from falling into his eyes. That until he was three, every time he got out of the bath, his father would sit in the rocking chair with him while his mother found pajamas. Holding Jack to his chest to keep him warm even when the water soaked into his own shirt. </p><p>But he trusts them. </p><p>“There you are. I thought I’d lost you.”</p><p>The gunshot had startled him. Enough so that when Jack was running down the hall, heart leaping in his chest even though he wasn’t entirely sure why he should be so afraid, he’d frozen. Head snapping around to look to the living room, to where he knows his mother and Foyet had just been. </p><p>Work the case. He’s supposed to be working the case. </p><p>And on shaking knees, he’d climbed into the chest that once held the house’s blankets. The little container smelt like his father. Given that the room doubled as Jack’s playroom and his father’s study, it isn’t surprising. It’s also, in part, why Jack had always loved the old chest so much. With the comforting scent of his father all around him, there was no reason to be afraid. </p><p>With his dad nearby, nothing can go wrong. </p><p>There are more gunshots. They sound like fireworks. Jack raises his hands to cover his ears, closing his eyes tightly, and waiting for dad to come get him. </p><p>Except, when that old chest creaks open, Foyet is smiling down at him. “You can’t go running off on me like that Jackie-boy. It’s rude.” Jack sits up, eyes flickering around to take in the blood all over Foyet’s face. Foyet picks Jack up, putting him down on the ground. He offers his hand down for Jack to take. “Come on, I got something to show you.”</p><p>Foyet waits patiently for Jack to climb up the stairs. He’s got short little legs, it’s a hard climb.</p><p>“You know,” Foyet says as they walk. “None of this would have had to happen if it weren’t for you daddy. I just want you to remember that, okay?” They walk past a blood streak on the carpet, Foyet watches Jack’s eyes glue to it. Turning back to look at it even as they pass it. </p><p>“He just had to make a deal,” he continues. “None of this had to happen, Jack.” </p><p>Jack stops in the doorway. He knows who it is laying on the floor. He smiles, at first, starting to rush forward-- then he sees the blood. It’s all over the carpet that his mother was always so worried he’d stain with juice or snacks. His father is different. His nose is wrong and his cheeks gaunter than they had been in the hospital. Discolored, too pale.</p><p>Jack lets go of Foyet’s hand, walking numbly to his father’s side. He crouches down, knees sinking into the blood seeping through the carpet’s fibers. “Daddy,” he whispers, softly. It’s the perfect mirror’s image to Saturday mornings in this very house, in this very room. </p><p>Hotch sitting on the floor while Jack played away with blocks. Blissfully unaware of the fact that his simple content with spending time with his father was the only thing keeping Hotch from being unglued by the horrors he saw daily. Except this time when he calls for his father, Hotch does not move. He doesn’t turn and smile at the soft call of his name.</p><p>He doesn’t breathe. </p><p>He doesn’t live. </p><p>Jack doesn’t understand that. He does know that his father needs sleep. He’s not to bother him if he’s sleeping on the couch or to come barging into his parent’s room if he wakes up early. His father has a poor relationship with sleep and Jack understands that to a very minimal degree but he’s four so he doesn’t understand a lot of things. But he can make sense of things and this makes sense. He’s just tired.</p><p>Foyet finds his knife tossed aside on the carpet. He’d displaced it in the roughness of dealing with Hotch. “Oh,” Foyet grumbles, testing the sharpness of the blade and finding it cracked. That big dumb bastard broke his knife. “Fuck,” Foyet turns the broken knife over in his hand. Grinning when he sees he’s captured Jack’s attention and that his little eyes are glued in fear to the weapon. </p><p>He holds it up for Jack to see better. “You know what this is?” Foyet steps towards Jack and the boy scrambles around Hotch, using his father as a barrier between himself and the man he understands to be bad. Though, hadn’t Foyet played with him not too long ago? </p><p>That fear makes a smile spread across Foyet’s face. “It’s a knife, a hunting knife.” He points the edge down to Hotch. To his torso, chuckling when Jack’s eyes widen. Hotch’s once white dress shirt is soaked in blood. Torn flesh peaking around the holes left by Foyet retracting the knife from his chest. Wide gaping wounds that Jack can feel in his stomach. Large enough to swallow him whole. </p><p>“I did that,” Foyet informs him, “and I’m going to do the same thing to you.” </p><p>Jack whimpers, turning to Hotch. Waiting, knowing that Hotch will protect him and if there was a breath of life in his lungs then Hotch would come off that floor. He’d fight but… he already fought to his wit’s end and it wasn’t enough. </p><p>It hurts. Hurts more than anything that Jack has ever experienced in his short little life. Worse than when he’d wrecked his bike. His legs had trembled under him as he’s walked back into the house, knees shredded and chest hitching as he sucked his choked hiccups in. Haley had wiped his tears and cleaned the cuts. Hotch had held him close to his chest, shushing his little sobs. </p><p>But his parents are dead. </p><p>Hotch doesn’t save him.</p><p>Haley doesn’t wipe away his tears. </p><p>He’s entirely alone on the floor he once played on.</p><p>Derek Morgan walks into that room with tears clouding his vision. He chokes when he sees their bodies. The fear still etched into Jack’s face. He throws a hand over his mouth, bending over as vomit works its way up his throat. “Oh God,” he whispers. “Oh fuck.” It’s all he can do to stop the others from coming in and seeing to. </p><p>He can hear JJ screaming, Emily’s offering pointless comfort. Her voice is trembling, her words empty. </p><p>They weren’t fast enough. </p><p>All that faith they’d had-- promising Hotch time and time again that they would get Foyet. Things would return to normal. Everyone would come home. And there he lays, with his son and wife, lifelessly on the floor of the home he bought thinking he would get the chance to grow old and use it.</p><p>Derek Morgan falls to his knees and forces himself to press his fingers under Jack’s neck. Swallowing down his own sob when he finds the skin warm but no heartbeat. </p><p>They could have saved him. </p><p>They were almost there. </p><p>Derek Morgan will never forgive himself for not being fast enough. If not for Aaron, if not for Haley, then for little Jack Hotchner. For the kid that Hotch had loved so much it hurt to pull him away from that boy. To see him watching Jack’s first steps from a screen. For those little oatmeal stains and the smile that would appear when Hotch noticed Jack had managed to get him the crossfire of throwing his breakfast across the kitchen.</p><p>And that joy, those soft smiles have been stolen. Gone.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>